Visiting Vegas
by Spewilicious
Summary: We're off to Vegas! Then we find out CSI isn't just a TV show... Cool! (not terribly dramatic)
1. Chappie 1

**Visiting Vegas**

Author: Spewilicious

Disclaimer: I dun own it/them. I just want to.

A/N: Guess why I wrote this! Because I was bored and I actually live in Nevada! And all my friends are real, believe it or not. Man, this is so much fun to write. I hope you all enjoy it! More soon!

* * *

It was your average is-it-over-yet kinda day. A few of my friends and I were being bored to death at the ticket counter. I mean, really, how hard is it to buy a ticket? Not that hard. Really. The guy in front of us over-complicating the issue and I'd had just about enough. 

"Excuse me, sir, but can I help you?" I asked nicely. He glared. So I glared back and said, "Let me simplify this for you. Give the nice lady your money. She'll give you a ticket in return. See, watch." I took his money and handed it to the lady. She gave me a relieved smile and a ticket. I handed it to the guy. "There you go. Have a nice flight." The guy stomped off, grumbling. I almost laughed.

"How may I help you?" The lady asked me.

"Oh, uh. Yeah, we want some tickets, too." I could just see Melissa rolling her eyes at my brilliant statement of the obvious. "Yeah, tickets to Las Vegas, please."

"When would you like to leave?"

"As soon as possible." We all had decided that we needed a vacation. But we couldn't afford to go anywhere far away, so Vegas it was. The lady was typing like mad on her keyboard and we were all waiting patiently. Kind of. Josh was calling his mom. Daniel and Sarah were talking about love monkeys…. or gorillas… or something. I really didn't want to know. Christie was about to grind her teeth. Nikki was checking out the girls and randomly muttering "She's hot." Oh, goodness it was funny. I tried to stare straight ahead and not even smile but it was so hard! I always smile and everything was so funny right now.

"Okay, I have a flight that has room for all ten of you. You are all together, right?" I nodded and she continued. "It departs at 10:30 a.m. on March 17th."

My jaw dropped. "What? That's, like, a month away. Our vacation is NOW, our reservations are NOW, for a month or so. We'd probably be coming back around March 17th. Holy cow." I shook my head. This was going to cost a lot of gas.

"Ethiopian beef!" Melissa muttered and stared waving her hand up and down. Emily, Aubree and Josh started laughing. I spun.

"Guys, that was an accident. I didn't mean to hit the roof! Geez." I turned back to the lady. "Look, sorry about this, but I guess we won't be buying tickets. Thanks anyway." The lady nodded nicely, clearly trying to figure out if my rescuing her from that guy had been worth the trouble of putting up with us. We lost. Oh, well.

We held a quick pow-wow in the McDonald's/Burger King/Dairy Queen right smack dab in the middle of the ticket counters.

"Okay, we can either go back and take our vacation a month from now, or…." I shuddered at the thought of gas prices. "We can drive."

A small explosion erupted right in front of me.

"No way!"

"We can't NOT go now!"

"I'll drive!" This last came from Kelly.

"NO!" we all shouted at the same time. Kelly was notoriously not good at things like driving or holding on to rings. But we loved her anyway. We just didn't let her drive… or hold on to rings…

Three hours later we had rented the biggest van we could find. We ended up with one that was big. Really big. Kinda like the MAV's around town. Except our's was red. Ooohhhh, yeah. One big red hunk of van. And I was driving it. I might get labeled as a control freak sometimes, but mostly it's just because I don't trust people to do what they're supposed to do. That's why I always hated working in groups at school… So here we were at a gas station. I was filling 'er up and trying to think up a good name for the behemoth. Everyone else was inside the mini-mart, stocking up on junk food, the staple of our lives. Silly them, didn't they realize we were going home for the night? The pump chinked at me, so I squeezed a bit more gas out of it. Yep, if I'm not broke by the time we get to Vegas, I'm NOT paying for gas on the way back.

Soon, everyone was trooping back and squishing into our ride. It really was only meant for nine really small people, but heck, what's one more big one in the grand scheme of things? We left the station and were on the highway headed to our little town.

"Hey, I've been thinking." I heard Christie, my co-pilot, give a murmured "Uh-oh" so I slugged her on the arm. "We need a name for this thing. I was thinking George. Or maybe Hubert."

"Mel, we are NOT calling it George. You name everything George. Your cactus, that nonexistent monkey we always talk about." Nikki said in an annoyed voice. "My shoe."

Emily raised an eyebrow "Her shoe?" Kelly snorted.

"What, you think Betsy fits it better?" I tried to sound insulted. It came out as amused. Shucks. "Well, come on. Have you got anything better? I mean, it can't be the Ratmobile with out the dead rat, so help me out here."

The rest of the hour long drive was spent in friendly argument over what name fit the kidney-like van best. Just as we were about to hit my dirt track of a road, Daniel had a light bulb of an idea.

"What about Mervyn Bjork?"

I almost crashed. "DANIEL? How did you know that?"

After everyone recovered from the narrow escape from the ditch, he answered. "How did I know what?"

"Bjork makes me laugh!" I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. "No, really, I was filing a jacket at work and that was the last name on it! I about fell over and I had to go tell Raelynn how funny it was!"

So we voted and Mervyn Bjork our van became. Mervy for short, though I insisted on Bjork.

I had set three alarms to go off within five minutes of each other... at four in the morning. I, for once in my life, didn't need them.

"Up!" I hollered as I bound downstairs. "Upupupupupupup! It's morning and it's time to GO! Come on!" I started to pull at blankets and pillows and feet until everyone was up. I went for Kelly first because she always got up good. She helped me pull feet. Then we started our conveyor belt rotating system. Showers and clothes and breakfast were all eventually passed around and we were ready to go! I was SO excited. I hadn't been to Vegas since I was a kid… Crazy. We were all packed into the car by five fifty. I'm still not sure how we fit all of our luggage in, but hey, it was there and we were there and the doors were closed and it was good. Even if I couldn't see out the back… Seven minutes later we were waiting for the light to turn green so we could turn left at the court house and barrel on to Las Vegas. And then we were turning left at the court house and barreling on to Las Vegas. Yay!

Aubree, Kelly and Melissa instantly decided that we were in need of a live radio and began to serenade us with "On the Road Again." While I personally like this song under normal circumstances, these were NOT normal circumstances and they were butchering the poor song. So I cranked up the radio. Josh pulled out a book. Daniel and Sarah were drawing on each other. Everything seemed to be settling down. The three singers were discouraged and cancelled the concert. I turned the volume down enough for normal conversation. Christie and I quickly started talking about one of our favorite subjects. CSI!

"So, have you watched the new episode yet?" I asked. I had seen it, but she hadn't yet, so I didn't want to give anything away.

She threw me a look. "Oh, yeah. You were right. It was disturbing. And that scene with Grissom and Nick in the baby store!"

"Oh my gosh, wasn't that just hilarious? Poor Nick!" We started laughing at the memory. Kelly leaned forward and asked what was so funny.

"A CSI episode." She looked interested, so I continued. "See, this hugely important (though jerky in an evilly mean sort of way) was found dead on his front steps, so the CSI's are called out and…." We spent the next three hours going over the episode in detail and the show in general. Kelly decided that someday she'd make a crime scene just for fun. We'd reached Tonopah, so we stopped to stretch our legs. It was dull. But then Tonopah had never seemed very exciting to me. A short time later we were back on the road and discussing Area 51.

"No, seriously, it's real! It's there! Why else would those scary guys walk around with machine guns and permission to shoot people with out warning?" I said.

"Melanie." Melissa said, using that no nonsense, I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that-stop-being-dumb tone of voice. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Hey, I didn't say what it's there for, but it IS there." And I refused to partake in any further discussion of the topic. That led to a pretty boring three hours. We paused in Indian Springs for not even five minutes. We were so close! Just one more hour and we'd be there!

One hour later, I was trying to find out how to get into the parking lot at New York, New York. Not as easy as one might think… But I managed. After half an hour of trying. But it wasn't as bad as Disneyland. A short bell hop guy came to get our luggage while the valet eyed our Bjork with a wary eye. I almost laughed. The bell hop guy was having problems with our luggage, so he called three more bell hop guys over to him to help. After prying our stuff loose, they loaded up two of those cool cart things and stood by to whisk them away. We went in to get our suite. After standing in line for, oh, no longer than an hour, we were given ten keys and a number. We bounded for the elevators with big silly grins, all our road weariness falling from us at the prospect of our own suite in Las Vegas for a month!

Finally getting an elevator, we went up in an excited fervor, almost exploding out at our floor. We ran up and down the halls looking for our door.

"Here it is!" Sarah called out. We dashed over and she unlocked the door.

"How cool is this…." I whispered. Then the door was open and we exploded in.

"Wow!"

"Check this out!"

"Look, here's the next room!"

"My word, our own living room thing!"

"Our bath tub is a swimming pool!"

"Ha, guys get this room!"

I unceremoniously ran to one of the girl rooms and tossed open the curtains. "Check out that view!" I grabbed the latch and pushed the window out as far as it would go… About four inches. Gotta keep those suicide jumpers in and all. "Man, this is just SO cool!"

We rendezvoused in the living room thing and set up our plan of attack for the day: Wander around the Strip and get a basic grasp on things. And maybe take a spin or two on the New York, New York coaster. And begin on the zillion rolls of pictures we'd be taking.

"Sounds good! Let's go!"

We all trooped into the hall, into the elevator, out of the lobby, and into the sunshine. February in Vegas…. SO much nicer than home. Amazing how much of a difference three hundred some odd miles made. Looking around and drinking deeply of the migrating populace, I noticed that our group was getting odd stares. So I looked around at us. Okay, so we weren't your average group.

I mean, we had Kelly and Aubree looking cute and young, hair curled, make-up perfect, giggling for no apparent reason; Daniel looking too tall, but comfy in his loose pants and flaming shirt; Sarah looking too short in her black jeans and red shirt; Josh looking absolutely un-Spanish, unruffled, and tan in khaki's and a plaid shirt; Melissa looking innocent in jeans and that cool shirt that goes so well with her Korean complexion; Nikki looking half goth in her black shoes, red and black striped stockings, black skirt, black shirt, black hair dye, black eye liner, and checking out all the girls in the near vicinity; Emily looking totally relaxed in her red Chucks, jeans, red t-shirt, and red hair dye; Christie looking ready to cut something (or someone) open in her combat boots, jeans, and a fanged Happy Bunny t-shirt that said "Cute but kinda scary"; and me, looking… fun? happy? colorful, at least, in my green Chucks, jeans, red belt, rainbow striped t-shirt, cat eye glasses, and with a yellow ribbon in my hair…. So not exactly a normal group, but does that matter in Las Vegas? Heck no! We were ready to have some fun!

We set out in search of what we wanted to do.

"Oh, let's do that some time!"

"We should go there!"

"I heard about this thing…"

And so it went for three hours. Then we went back to our suite to get ready for dinner. We had reservations for this big ol' fancy place to celebrate our first night there, and it required nice clothes and ties and combed hair. So we took turns with the three showers and the six mirrors, getting gorgeous (or handsome). It was loads of fun because I made Christie do something with her hair. And we made her wear make up. Heh heh. I skipped over my pretty colored outfits for my super cute black one: A cute black skirt with a bow, a low v-neck black-and-gray striped shirt and cute heels with buckles over the toes. Of course I couldn't be completely with out color so I used a green ribbon in my hair. All the other girls were in varying shades of black, gray ,or dark shades of blue or purple. We looked awesome. The guys had spiffy dark suits and fun ties and looked super shnazzy.

We took the bus. That was loads of fun! I think most of the other riders were confused by our presence and it made me laugh. Twenty minutes later we disembarked a block from the restaurant and strolled up the sidewalk, chatting like mad. You'd think we'd get tired of talking…. Naw!

The Host knew our party immediately; it was the largest of the night. We were, of course, placed right in the middle of the dining hall. Forty-five minutes after ordering, our food arrived and we tried our best not to fall on it like ravening beasts. At least, that's how I felt. It was a fun evening. We made more plans, dreamed of what it would be like to live like this always… Very relaxing. When dessert was served (chocolate cake for me!), we began toasting… The food, us, the trip, us, life, us… It was loads of fun. We got pretty creative for a while and would bust up laughing after each new random toast. I'm sure the Host was more than ready for us to leave. We did finally leave and we gave a huge tip to thank them for putting up with us.

We walked back towards our hotel, mingling anonymously with the crowds and the lights of the Strip. Then… I heard music. Good dance music. A club! Yes! I immediately made every one come with me. Nothing could make this night any better than a few hours of dancing!

The club was crowded, hot, and loud. I loved it! Most of my fellows headed straight for tables placed around the dance floor, but me? I was out there with the music. You didn't really need someone to dance with; it was so crowded every one was pretty much dancing with everyone. After a few songs I finally pulled Daniel out on to the floor. If anyone I've ever met can dance, it's Daniel. After getting him to loosen up a bit, he was the hit of the night. After that, he was dubbed Dance Man Daniel. At about two we finally left, this time to go all the way back to the hotel.

We were piling out of the elevator three floors below our own because we wanted to use the stairs, give them some exercise, when we heard an odd noise. We looked all around and suddenly this chick comes tearing out of the room five doors down from us. She screamed when she saw us and turned and ran to the far end and the stairs there.

"O-kay… Any one else confused?" Melissa asked. We nodded. Then Christie grabbed my arm.

"Mel, it's just like a CSI episode! We've stumbled onto a crime scene! Don't touch anything!"

"I think she was drunk, chick." I replied.

"No! She's running from a crime! Let's go see!" She began to pull me toward the open door. Looking back at everyone, I shrugged. They shrugged back.

The two of us crept up to the door, and Christie nudged it farther open with her shoe. The sight that met us made me gasp. I grabbed Christie's arm. There was someone half on the bed and half off with blood by his head.

"Oh my gosh, Christie. It IS just like CSI. Only now we're suspects because we were first on the scene! What if they arrest us? This is supposed to be our vacation!" She just stared at me. "Maybe we should call the police." I dug out my cell phone and called 911. A lady answered. I thrust the phone at Christie.

"Wha? Talk to her!" she hissed at me.

"I don't know what to say!" I whispered back.

Sighing, she took the phone and spoke. "I'd like to report some kind of accident…. No I don't know what it is exactly…… Well, we're in the ninth floor hallway of New York, New York, outside room number, um, lemme look… 912. There's someone inside hanging off the bed with blood by his head…… No, I don't know if he's dead! I'm not gonna go tromping across a crime scene! Do you think I never watch CSI?... Ok, we'll be in the hallway." She pushed end and handed my phone back to me. "We get to be interviewed."

"Oh, gosh, you've always wanted to be interviewed!" We began to walk back towards our friends.

Reaching them, we were bombarded with questions.

"What is it?"

"What's going on?"

So we spent the next fifteen minutes telling them what we saw and what was said on the phone. Then the police and paramedics showed up. Man, talk about scary! They were all official and uniformed and… scary.

Two minutes later one called out, "He's still alive! Get a stretcher in here!" Then they carried him out and it was weird. I mean, come one, not every one stumbles on an almost murder their first day on vacation… Then this almost familiar detective guy came and talked to us for a moment, asking really general questions, where were we standing, where did we go, who saw what. Then he told us that the main detective for the scene would be with us as soon as he was done talking to the CSI's. Christie and I started to vibrate. Real CSI's! Right here! Whoo!

I looked over at Christie and said, "You right! This is so much like CSI!" Then new voices came from the elevator drew my attention and I glanced toward them. "Just… like…" My mouth stopped working and Christie stopped vibrating and we stared. "Just… like…." OH MY GOSH. "…like…." My mouth wanted to hang open, but my subconscious wanted to finish the gosh-darned sentenced so my chin wobbled up and down for a moment. "….C….CSI….." Then my brain shut down and I stared open mouthed like a big mouth bass as Detective Jim Brass paused to point us out to CSI's Nick Stokes, Sara Sidle and Catherine Willows.


	2. Chappie 2

**Visiting Vegas**

Disclaimer: No own CSI, no own Discovery channel, no own Clue (the game).

A/N: I want to tell any Mormons out there that I'm NOT poking fun at their vans. It's just what we call them. And I love Clue. Oh, and no animals were harmed in the typing of this story.

* * *

I blinked. OH MY GOSH. The world slowed down. Christie and I turned to look at each other. Out faces said the same thing. No way. CSI was just a show! But… we couldn't have stumbled on to a set because we HAD called the cops and there were no cameras. Our faces said it again. No way. As we watched in dazed awe, Brass stopped Nick and spoke to him while Sara and Catherine moved on to process the room.

"Christie…" My mouth was trying to work again. "Christie. Christie, LOOK." I couldn't even point. She nodded. "They're… real. Oh my gosh, Christie, they're REAL!" With that I sat down in the middle of the hall. Nikki nudged me with her foot. My chin flopped down once again as Brass motioned to us and Nick snapped on some gloves. Christie just stood there, watching and not freaking out. She was handling this way better than me. In fact, most of my friends were. But that was probably because they had NO idea who was walking towards us. Walking up, he set down his case and gave me an odd look.

"Okay, so which one of you called this in?" Christie pointed down at me and I pointed up at her. Nick raised an eyebrow. "So who was it?"

My mouth stopped working all over again. Christie picked up the ball and ran with it. "It was her phone and she dialed, but I talked to the dispatcher." I nodded.

"Okay, I'm going to need fingerprints from all of you. Will that be a problem?"

I shook my head, but Christie said, "You need a warrant."

Suddenly my chin stopped hanging and I heard my self speaking. "Christie! You can't be serious! I mean, come on! That's just mean! Why should he need a warrant when we're all here and just standing around?" Then I stopped looking at her and turned my attention to Nick. "You can take my fingerprints."

"I want to get served a warrant at least once in my life and what could be better than getting one from these guys?" My eyes widened. So Christie was excited. She was just better at hiding it than me. Nick just stared. I almost laughed. Then it was back to business.

"Who else will do it with out a warrant?" he asked. Everyone except Christie nodded their head. I tried not to laugh. "Great." He squatted down in front of me and opened his kit. Reaching in, he pulled out an inker and some fingerprint paper.

"Oh, wow, this is so cool." I was trying not to wiggle too much.

"Your right hand please." I held my hand out and he carefully inked each finger before pressing it down on the paper. Then he asked for my left and repeated the process. Whoo! I was being fingerprinted by Nick Stokes of the Las Vegas crime lab! If that crazy lady had randomly shown up and shot me, I would have died happy.

"Thanks," he smiled. "You next," he said standing up and looking at Nikki. I sighed. Nikki nudged me with her foot. Again. I sighed and stood up. Crap, my leg was asleep. I began hopping around and wiggling it around, cringing at the zingy pain. Nick was, once again, giving me strange looks as he moved towards Nikki.

"Right hand, pl-"

"Hola," an odd voice interrupted him. Nikki smiled.

"Uh, what was that?" He looked confused.

"Just Dante," she said, with a smile. I slapped my hand to my mouth and stared at her.

"No way." My voice was muffled so I moved my hand. "You didn't…" She just started to laugh. "Nikki! You're going to kill him! How could you? Poor Dante." I stalked over to her, followed by Melissa who knew exactly what I meant. "Show."

Nikki put her hand up to her shoulder and pulled a slightly ruffled green parrot out from under her hair. "Hola," it said.

Melissa took him and I eyed Nikki suspiciously. "You don't have any other critters around, do you?" And I ushered in the evil glare of doom. "No geckos or crabs? No Mero and Tori? No fish?"

"Well…" Nikki began. "I do have a Fish right there." She pointed. At Melissa.

"Nikki! You know what I mean!" More evil death glare of doom.

Chuckling, she shook her head. "No, just Dante. I couldn't leave him at home, he'd miss me!"

I just shook my head. By this time, Nick had finished Nikki and had moved on to Emily, trying oh so obviously to ignore our conversation. I think he was beginning to wonder if we, the witnesses, would be more of an issue than the crime. That made me want to laugh. A lot. But I refrained and tried to look in control. I failed miserably. I was just too excited about the CSI's actually being here and being real. Having figured out our animal control problem, Christie and I began to shadow Nick, watching his every move carefully. Christie had a reason to. She was in the process of becoming a forensic pathologist. I just wanted to see the stuff in real life. I mean, it was like the Discovery Channel LIVE! (cue applause). And it was SO cool. I think Nick was about tired of it when we began to mimic his movements. Occasionally he would let out sighs coupled with very soft, almost inaudible why-me's. But we were undaunted. Soon there was only Sarah and Aubree left. So I worked up my courage and asked.

"Can I try?"

"What?" He stared at me.

"Can I try? You, know, fingerprinting." I motioned to his ink and paper.

"Me too!" Christie said eagerly. With her on one side and me on the other, Nick looked a little trapped. So he caved.

"Well, I guess it would be alright. Let me show you first, and then you can try it."

"ALRIGHT!" I jumped up and down for a moment, before standing quietly beside him to learn the art of finger printing.

"First take the finger and roll the pad across the ink pad, like this…" And he demonstrated. "Then roll it across the designated space on the paper." And he demonstrated that, too. "Now you try." He handed me the ink pad.

"Whoa. This is awesome." I was so excited. I took Sarah's finger and I rolled it across the ink, then across the paper. "Oh my gosh! That was so freaking cool. Oh, wow!" I was jumping up and down again. Then Christie got to try it, though she acted calmer than me. How boring.

"Geez, guys," came Sarah's voce. "Now I feel like 'Criminal Barbie.' Ooo, ooo, mommy I want that one!"

It made me laugh. Sarah was good at that. And it made Nick smile, so I gave her a hug. She looked confused. But that was okay, because she had gotten Nick to smile. Just then Catherine stuck her head out of the room.

"Hey, Nicky, are you almost done out there? We could use your help in here."

"Uh, yeah, I'll be right there, Cath.

"Thanks." And she was gone. Christie and I were staring, chins dangling… Again. Man, it was almost freaky, it was so cool.

"Thanks, ladies and gents." He turned to Christie. "I'll be back with that warrant."

"Right-o," she replied. I stared at her. How the heck could she be so flippant? I mean, it was Nick Stokes! And she was practically cracking jokes. It was SO not fair. Nick headed for the room and disappeared inside. I started to giggle, but then Brass was approaching so I had to shut up and act un-stupid.

"Ok, you ladies first." He motioned to Christie and me, so we followed him down the hall. "You go talk to Detective Vega over there, ok?" he said to Christie. She followed his pointing arm and met up with Vega. He started asking her questions. Then Brass started in on me. Now, as excited as I was, it was still scary being interviewed for an almost murder. He was so serious and almost glaring, like he thought I did it. No way. I seemed to be thinking that a lot lately. And I knew we technically were suspects, first on the scene and all that, but I also knew that once they got the preliminary evidence in, we'd all be cleared. So I was trying to enjoy the experience of being interviewed by Jim Brass. It was almost hard because he was awfully glare-y and scary. But I got through it and, once it was over, I was thrilled! The two detectives interviewed everyone and were just finishing up with Josh and Kelly when all three CSI's strolled out of the room.

"Hey, Brass, we're finished here." Catherine said as they waited for the elevator. "You almost done?

"Yeah, this is it." He turned to us. "We may be back with more questions. Since I'm assuming you'll be around town, is there some way I'll always be able to get a hold of you?"

We all exchanged glances. Melissa nudged me. "I can give you my cell number. It's…" Brass copied the numbers down and turned to leave with the CSI's. My friends and I decided to forget the stairs and stood waiting for the other elevator. A soft bing sounded and everyone looked up. The down light was above the elevator we were in front of. Another bing sounded and the up arrow appeared over the elevator the investigators were in front of. I almost laughed as the groups switched places to get in the elevators. I was ducking Dante when I accidentally bumped into Nick.

"Oh, sorry." I smiled up at him. He smiled back and then stepped into his elevator. I got into mine and that was that. As the door closed the tension dropped like a rock. I sure hoped we didn't… Drop like a rock, I mean. Elevators are odd things after all. I think that we were all ready to pass on showers and just go to sleep. I mean, we'd been up for 24 hours. Excitement and adrenaline only go so far. We stumbled into the suite and headed straight for our respective rooms.

"'Night," some one mumbled.

"'Night," we all mumbled back.

I fell onto my bed and almost immediately leapt up again. I just wasn't THAT tired. I reached for one of my suitcases and pulled out a pack of new sheets and a quilt from home. Christie snorted when she saw.

"Melvis, what are you doing?" Nikki asked.

"I'm using my own nice, new, never been used sheets." And with that I began to strip the bed.

"I can see that, but why?"

"I'm NEVER sleeping on public sheets again." I said firmly as I began to spread my own sheets out. Her face said it: why? "Haven't you ever watched CSI? Man, the sheets they get are nasty! Ew, I don't even want to think about it." Christie snorted again. She knew what I was talking about.

Nikki still didn't understand. "Look, people come here on honeymoons and have S-E-X. Other people come here when they're paid to have S-E-X. Now all that S-E-X makes stains. And they last longer than diamonds, I mean, really. They're not coming out. And that's just gross. So here are my new sheets, no stains or anything. Not gross." I smiled. Nikki nodded and headed for the other room.

"You're insane," Christie told me.

"Nope," I disagreed. "Totally and completely out of Sane."

The next morning we split up. Sarah and Daniel were, believe it or not, headed to the Desert Rose Golf Club. I have no idea why. Attempting to hit little bitty balls with sticks is SO not my idea of fun… But, hey, if it floats your boat. Aubree and Kelly were spending the day at a spa some where or other. I missed the name. The rest of us were off to spend as much of the day in the Luxor as possible. I mean, what could be cooler than getting tickets to see the Blue Man Group, then going on all the fun motion rides? And Egyptian adventure rides? And the last time I was here, they had Egyptian trolls.

After over sleeping and breakfast at 11:00 a.m. we actually got to the Luxor at 1:30 p.m. We headed straight for the ticket place. And there was this guy in front of us…. He had no clue how to go about buying tickets. I couldn't believe it. We decided we'd try back later. So we went on this one ride that started out in an "elevator" in a dig in Egypt. Only it broke and we "plummeted" to the bottom where we were allowed to "climb out" and take our seats. It was so much fun! So cheesy. But then that's Vegas, right? Then there was this show in their theater and that was cool. Not quite as neat as the motion theater but slightly more informative. By then we were all hungry so we scouted around and found a cute little coffee shop tuck behind the Nile and some palm trees. Then we decided to try our luck at the ticket counter again. And, by gosh, there wasn't anyone there! So we scurried up like scarabs and asked for tickets.

"How many would you like?" the guy asked.

"Oh, lots," Emily said. We laughed as the guy rolled his eyes. "How about ten? And we'd like a show a couple days from now."

"Right. Ten." He typed like mad at his computer. "There are actually some seats open for the Friday night show, but they're not together. Saturday has ten together though."

"We'll take the Saturday tickets, thanks." I said. We paid and the guy gave us our tickets. Whoo! We turned to leave. Melissa wanted to skip. So she took off at top-skipping speed and we tried to deny that we knew her in any way. There were some kiosk-like displays near by so we wandered over and browsed.

"Oh my gosh!" I was wiggling. "Looky, there they are!"

"What? What?"

"The trolls! Aren't they cute? Wearing those little Egyptian clothes with that hair!" I started to laugh.

"Please don't touch so much." the kiosk-keeper said. Totally intimidated, we moved on.

"Hey, let's get going."

Back at the hotel, we found Daniel and Sarah returned from there golfing adventure. They were camped out on the couch in our living room thing watching "Adventures in Babysitting." Since it's such a funny movie, most us camped out with them to wait for Aubree and Kelly. I'm not sure why, but we did.

Five hours later, Aubree and Kelly were still MIA, and I'd had it with TV. So I had pulled out my super nifty laptop and made icons. Beautiful 100x100 bits of CSI-a-licious art. And then I ran out of ideas. Crap. So I went to LiveJournal to post some. I love wireless internet. It rocks. After sticking up the new ones in my LJ, I put some in CSI Icons, and then cruised around some of the other commies I hung around in.

"OH MY FREAKING GOSH!" I hollered at no one in particular.

The phone rang. Dang it, ruined my moment. Heaving an overly dramatic sigh I answered. "Hello?"

"This is the concierge. I have a Nick Stokes here to see you?" He said it like a question.

"Whoo, send 'im up!" I tossed the phone down. "Christie! Some one here for you!"

Soon there was a knock on the door. I fell off the couch in my haste to get to the door first. Then I was up and running. Crashing almost head first into the door, I opened it. "Hi there. Come on in. OH MY GOSH!" There was someone with Nick… Someone with a great nose and spiky hair. And the idiot grin made its entrance.

Nick motioned to the hotness standing next to him. "This is-"

"Greg Sanders. I know."

The two CSI's looked a bit confused. "O-kay…" They sounded confused, too. Hey, Brass was there too. He looked confused and left out. I smiled at him.

Walking in, Nick commented in that I'm-interrogating-you-but-you-aren't-supposed-to-know-it kinda voice. "I heard a couple of crashes. It sounded like some one hit the door."

I blushed. "Uh, yeah. That was just me falling off couch. And crashing into the door… Yeah."

"So, we have the warrant to get Christie B.'s fingerprints. And to search your entire suite."

"Holy cow. Our entire suite? Wow." I was surprised. But then, we were the prime suspects for now. 'Till the evidence said 'Hey, none of these guys were ever within ten feet of this almost dead guy.' Which it would. 'Cuz the evidence never lies.

"Ethiop-" Melissa started. Five people silenced her with a look.

Nick went to take Christie's fingerprints and I had an idea.

"Hey, you wanna search Bjork, too?" I offered.

"A-who-ma?" Greg spoke for the first time.

"Bjork. Our MAV-wannabe." I clarified. They still had no idea what I was talking about. "Our van. It's big and red. And we named it Mervyn Bjork."

"What's an MAV?" Now Greg was attempting the I'm-interrogating-but-not voice.

"Oh, it's a 'Mormon Assault Vehicle.' They drive them around town, 'cept theirs are always white and empty. Which is why ours is a wannabe. It's red and full. And none of us are Mormon."

"Right." He glanced at Nick, who gave a subtle nod. "Yes, we want to search that, as well. Do we have your permission, or do we need another warrant?"

"No, go right ahead. Want me to call the valet for you?"

"No, we'll wait until we're done here."

Nick walked over and said "I'll take the left room, you go right." They split up and I grinned. Soon, Greg's voice carried in to us. "Alright! Girl's room!" Christie and I snickered. Then we stood around for fifteen minutes.

"Oh my gosh! Aubree and Kelly are still gone!" Nikki randomly said.

"Hola," Dante randomly supplied.

"Hey, your right. Weren't they due back four and a half hours ago? Give or take fifteen minutes?" I said. "I wonder where they are…"

Brass joined the conversation. "What this?"

"Our friends, Kelly and Aubree. They went to the spa today, and were supposed to meet us here four and a half hours ago, give or take fifteen minutes. Then we were gonna go watch the pirates outside Treasure Island."

Brass was thinking. "Do they have cell phones?"

"Oh my gosh, yes!" I whipped out my own and quickly speeded Aubree. No answer. Kelly next. No answer. Now I was getting stressed. I looked up at Brass. "Nothing."

"Maybe they've been kidnapped!" Sarah said.

"By the lady who ran out of the almost dead guy's room!" Melissa added.

"To keep us quiet!" Emily joined in.

"Because we aren't going to tell anyone when two of our friends randomly don't come back!" Daniel said in a high pitched voice.

"Hey…" Melissa started.

"No, they've got a point." Brass cut in. "Maybe it was the lady, in the spa, with the towel."


	3. Chappie 3

**Visiting Vegas**

Standard disclaimer applies to everything.

A/N: I have nothing against Buicks.

* * *

"But this isn't Clue, so it probably isn't that simple." I stated.

"But, Melanie, Clue isn't simple. I always guess wrong." Sarah said. "I mean, I get all the info I can, but in the end I'm always wrong."

"Well, you just need to-"

"Why don't we focus on the important thing here," Melissa interrupted. "Like Kelly and Aubree and the fact that they aren't here."

Sarah and I hung our heads. "Yeah… I guess that's more important than Clue results… Anyway, I still don't think it could be so simple. I mean, anyone with even two brain cells would at least think to possibly shake it up by sending her brother to do the dirty work."

My friends pondered this a moment before nodding their heads in agreement.

"So what are we gonna do? We haven't received a 'be quite or your friends will get it' kinda note, so are we not supposed to talk to the cops or can we just go ahead and help?" Daniel raised a very good point.

"Well, I am going to not be quiet." Melissa stated firmly. We looked at her.

"Great. You have fun not being quiet." Sarah said.

"I mean, I'm going to cooperate. I'm going to talk to the cops. No keeping quiet here," she clarified. We nodded.

Nick emerged from the guys' room and began on the living room thing. Another ten minutes and he was standing with us waiting for Greg to finish. Another ten minutes and he was still standing with us and waiting for Greg to finish.

"Nick…" Brass said, leaning his head towards the door Greg had gone through.

"Yeah," he answered. He turned and walked over to the door. Sticking his head in, he said in a slightly loud voice, "Greg! Aren't you done yet, man? We've still got the car and spa to do!"

"Hey," Greg's voice came back. "I've got a question for someone."

"Don't touch it," Nick said as he went in.

"I'm not going to mess anything up. I just don't understand it." Greg's voice faded as Nick drew closer, rendering the need for increased volume unnecessary. We couldn't really hear what was being said but we could tell by the tones that did carry back that both men were confused. Pretty soon we heard Nick again. "Hey, Brass? Come here for a sec, will you?"

After giving us a stern look that very clearly said 'move from this spot and you'll be cuffed in seconds,' Brass stepped through the door and joined the mass of mystery waiting in the room beyond. And then he was back, giving us each a look of annoyed curiosity.

"Okay, which one of you changed the sheets?" he said almost disbelieving. "And why?"

_Oh, crap._ I mostly just blinked at him. Everyone else was looking at me, so I guess it was pretty obvious it was me. So I gathered my thoughts and said, "That would be me." Brass raised his eyebrow at me. Oh yeah, the 'why' part. "Haven't you seen what's on public sheets? I'm talking serious gross out. I can't sleep on- ew, gross."

Brass was looking at me like I was crazy. Then he shook his head. "Well, come back with me and show the CSI's where you stashed the normal sheets."

Following him, I allowed myself a secret smile. I got to see more Nick and Greg. Mwahaha. It was actually pretty weird to see them standing over my bed with their gloves on. They were all professional and it was like, whoa. So my secret smile died a bit. But it couldn't die completely because I mean, it was Nick and Greg, after all. So, as they watched I went to one of the cupboard/drawer things and opened the bottom one. Inside were stuffed the offending sheets. Nick moved in to collect them, while Greg started in on my nice, not gross new ones. I watched sadly, hoping sheets didn't cost too much in Las Vegas. I guess Greg must have noticed that I didn't look _too_ thrilled with the disappearing act my sheets were trying out so he said something.

"You know, bringing your own sheets is a pretty awesome idea. And they're great colors." He smiled at me as he stuffed my sheets in a bag.

At first I wasn't sure what to think. I mean, not everyone thinks that bright orange and bright blue sheets go together. But then, it was Greg. So I smiled back. "Thanks. The cashier asked if I was color blind when I bought them." Greg snorted. "I think she was serious, too." My brow furrowed as I pondered why she would ask that. Whatever. Greg liked them. I smiled some more. I think it was beginning to turn into a silly grin.

"Are you?" he asked.

"No. I have great color sight. Just not so good vision. What about you? Th- erm. Yeah, what about you?" I mentally smacked my forehead. I'd almost said 'they never said on the show.' Can you believe it? Oh, man.

"Uh, no, I'm good. Blue equals blue and all that." He was looking at me funny. Oh, man. He finished writing on the seal/label thingy and turned to find Nick in conversation with Brass. So he turned back to me and asked, "So what do you do?"

I wasn't ready for a continuation of our conversation, so it took me a moment to catch up. "What do I…? Oh, like my job." I nodded my understanding. "I'm a doctor. Mostly."

"Mostly? How can you be 'mostly' a doctor?"

"Well, I just finished my internship a few months ago. So I'm still just kinda getting started. So I'm mostly a doctor."

"I see. I guess that's kinda like me being mostly a CSI." He nodded his understanding at me. His hair was so cute.

"Yes, exactly! You're building a foundation, I'm building a foundation." And this topic was officially exhausted. I tried to come up with something less complicated to talk about. "What's your favorite kind of music?" Lame, I know.

"Rock. I really dig Marilyn Manson."

"Really?" I tried to act like this was news, but it was hard. So I talked. "Have you seen the video for (s)AINT? There's this guy in it that has a smile a lot like yours."

That got me another smile. Yay. "Have you been checking out my smile?"

"Among other things." I replied cheekily.

"Oh really?" He smiled some more. "And what do you think?"

And the silly grin officially entered. I was about to answer when Nick walked over.

"Okay, you two flirty birds. Greggo, we're done here." He turned to me. "You wanna call that valet now?"

Still grinning I nodded. So we all filed out into the living room thing where I picked up the phone and called for Bjork.

"…five minutes? That's fine. …… Okay, thanks!" I hung up. "They'll have Bjork right out. Do you need someone to come with you? To identify it?"

"Yeah, sure." Greg said before Nick could even open his mouth. "That'd be great."

"I wanna come." Melissa said.

"Yeah, me too." Daniel said.

"I'm coming, too." Christie said.

"Sock," Dante added.

So the four of us trooped off to the elevator with our three investigators. It didn't hit me until we were all in the elevator how silly this was. It actually caused me to giggle.

"What?" Daniel asked, poking me.

"Well, I was just wondering," I started, looking around at us. "How many tourists does it take to i.d. a Bjork?" And I giggled again. Melissa rolled her eyes and Daniel gave a weak smile. Nick, however had to raise his hand to try to cover his smile. And yes, I realize it was a shameless play on the old 'how many dogs does it take to screw in a light bulb' but I couldn't help it. I mean, FOUR of us to say 'hey, yeah, that's our car'? Overkill if you ask me. Anyway, I thought it was funny. There was no time to expound on this though, as we had reached the ground floor and Bjork was waiting. We swept out of the elevator and into the lobby. Of course, we ended up being three minutes too early for Bjork so we stood around outside waiting, like most everyone else. Only we were more special because we had Brass with his spiffy badge and the two luggage lugging CSI's. So of course we were cooler than your average tourists.

"Uh, is that your van?" Nick leaned over and asked. He was pointing to the big red monstrosity rolling towards the curb.

"Yep, that's Bjork!" I replied cheerfully. Then I had a thought that made me pause. "You aren't going to have to take it in, are you? I mean, we could always get another car, but…"

"Don't worry. Unless we find something suspicious, you can keep it." Nick assured us. "Greg, you wanna take the front?"

"Sure." He moved off around the vehicle and opened the driver's door.

Before heading off to his own search, Nick turned and asked, "Can you give me some kind of seating plan? You know, who sat where?"

"Sure," Melissa piped up. "Aubree sat in the back seat next to the window, Kelly sat next to her. Sarah was next to her and Daniel was on the end, for leg room and all. Josh sat next to the window in the middle seat and Emily was next to him. Nikki was next and I sat on the end. Kinda. Melanie was driving and Christie sat shotgun."

Nick smiled at her. "Thanks." And off he went to pick up hair and look for suspicious materials.

While they were occupied, Melissa and I needed to talk. So….. "If you'll excuse us, we need to use the little girls' room…." And I grabbed her arm and pulled her away. Linking arms we went back inside.

"Oh my gosh, you'll never believe it! Guess what!" I burst out some what quietly.

"What?"

"I- oh my gosh, I can't believe it!"

"What?"

I turned to her with a stupid grin on my face. "You'll be so proud of me." She gave me a don't-make-me-hurt-you look so I continued. "I flirted with Greg."

She stared at me. "You what?"

"I _flirted_ with _Greg,_" I repeated.

"Oh my gosh! _You_ flirted? But I thought…"

"But remember, you taught me." I faltered. "Well, you tried… But, look it finally sank in! And GREG of all people!" We were both practically jumping up and down.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so proud of you! Tell me everything!"

So, forgetting we were supposed to be in the restroom, we sat down in the lobby and proceeded to rehash everything I had said to Greg. Then everyone trooped back in and we were caught.

"I thought you said you needed the bathroom." Daniel said suspiciously.

"Uh…. So did we, but it must have been the sun because as soon as we got back inside we were fine." Melissa said. Good thing, too, because I was too busy with a half silly, half guilty grin on my face. I could tell Greg knew what we had been talking about because he was obviously trying hard not to smile.

I think Brass just gave up on us because he gave us one of those half smiles and said, "We'll be in touch."

As soon as they were gone, Melissa and I started laughing like there was no tomorrow. Daniel was like 'okay….'

"Can we get back to the room now?" Christie asked.

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead." We followed her back to the elevator.

Getting in she demanded to know what that was all about. I eyed her. She'd probably either get mad at me or roll her eyes. Depended on her mood. I was hoping for the eye roll because there was really no point in yelling at me. I opened my mouth to say something, but Melissa beat me to the punch line.

"She _flirted._ With _Greg_."

And now I was blushing. I'd been waiting for that since I saw him. Thankfully Christie only rolled her eyes and called me crazy. I laughed. Melissa laughed. Daniel shook his head at us. Christie tried not to smile, but I could see it lurking there beneath the surface. I laughed again.

Upon arriving back at the room, we found that the others had devised a plan of action. Basically, we'd keep worrying about Aubree and Kelly and carry out our plans anyway. Brilliant, wasn't it? The only problem was that none of us could remember if we had any plans for that night. So we decided to start anew. We decided to head over to the Liberace Museum! Yay! So we called the valet to have them bring Bjork back out. Fortunately for them, they hadn't put Bjork back yet. So we all trooped to the elevator and through the lobby. Outside, Bjork sat large and shiny. We piled in and Christie pulled out a map. Heck, it was close. We found our mark and set off was

Ok, now I'm not one to judge, but Liberace was scary! The museum was filled to bursting with big scary sparkly things. I think this guy had a rhinestone fetish… And his clothes! Geez, he had bigger collars than Elvis and all those capes! Gosh. I was sure I'd have nightmares for a week. Some of his pianos were pretty awesome though. I'm not exactly sure how he could concentrate on music while sitting at some of them, but they were cool. Melissa and Daniel were falling in love with them, that's for sure.

"Oh my gosh, Daniel! Look at that one! It's practically a picture!"

"Check out that one, Fish! It's… it's…. wow."

And so on and so forth. Most of it scared me. And Christie. And Nikki. I think Josh was pretty unmoved, but that's not unusual. Emily and Sarah were having lots of fun laughing at the clothes. I couldn't wait to get out of there. Eventually (like three hours later) we did. Sarah, Daniel, Melissa and I wanted to walk the three miles back to our hotel, so Christie and the others hopped in Bjork and left us. The four of us set of at a leisurely pace, just strolling merrily along. Well, maybe not exactly 'merrily,' but close enough.

"So… Love monkeys… What's new in your department?" I inquired. "Who won that golf game?"

"Uh… She did."

"Yes, I did. And I _don't _cheat." Sarah's voice was very firm. Obviously we didn't wanna go there.

"Hey, random fact, did you know that the word 'golf' is actually an acronym?" I said, hoping to lighten the mood. "It stands for '**g**entlemen **o**nly, **l**adies **f**orbidden.' Betcha didn't know that."

"And you learned this where?" Melissa said.

"Back in high school. The girls in the office and I were trying to win something off the radio and Rae found this trivial info sight that had the answer as well as other stuff." I shrugged.

Daniel and Sarah snickered and Melissa just rolled her eyes. Like I said, it was a random fact. They just didn't seem to appreciate it. So, ignoring them I took to humming a spiffy song.

"Hm... hmm. Hmhmhm. Hmhmhm…. Obsession, you're my obsession…. Hm. Hmhm." I was very happy with my song and Melissa started talking to Daniel and Sarah, so everything was good.

"So what's that you're humming?" The voice was right behind me.

I practically jumped out of my skin in surprise and turned around swinging. I mean, it was Vegas after all and I was not about to become some homicide statistic. Then my turning head brought my eyes around and I saw who I was swinging at. And that practically made me jump out of my skin again as I tried to stop my fist from connecting with that absolutely perfect nose. Yep, it was Greg. And Nick. Whoo! Double hotness!

"Augh…" I said oh so cleverly. "Sorry," I covered. By now my three friends had turned around to see what was going on so I had an audience. I was red with embarrassment.

"Good reflexes," Nick said with a smile. Great smile.

"Yeah, 'cept it was me she was reflex-ing on," Greg said with a grin. Fabulous grin.

"Yeah, well, Vegas, baby. Not exactly the land of sunshine and butterflies," I said. "So what are you doing here? I figured you'd be doing something really scientific-y with my sheets."

We all started walking as Greg replied. "Naw, we're done with them for now. They're clean, although there were some pretty nice epithelia on 'em."

"Were you checking out my epithelia?"

"Among other things." He replied with a crooked grin.

I had just opened my mouth to say something when Melissa interrupted.

"So what are you doing here? Not that I'm complaining or anything…" she trailed off. It was a fair question. I mean, two CSI's just didn't randomly show up for no reason. Right?

"Well…" Nick said.

"Actually, it was Nick's idea. We were just driving by when we saw you walking and Nick said we should stop and walk with you." Greg said.

"Yeah." Nick agreed. "Can't have too much back up when your people are disappearing."

"That's so nice!" Melissa said, smiling at Nick. The two of them started talking about something or other.

"So, what were you humming? We covered my music taste kinda, but what about you?" Greg was inquired.

"Oh it was, um, Obsession, by… um… Animal, Animush, Animotion! That's who. I love the 80's." I grinned.

Greg was about to say something back when suddenly some random jogger guy ran by and bumped into Melissa. Hard. And he didn't even say sorry. Totally thrown off balance, she toppled off the curb and into the road.

"Gosh dang it!" She said in a frustrated manner. She turn back towards us when this huge car, a Buick, I think, came careening down the road. From the far lane came the sound of screeching tires as someone slammed on they're brakes. This huge black puppy had bounded out into traffic and was heading straight for Melissa. Drawing near, the dog launched itself at her. The rest of us watched in horrified slow motion. The careening Buick getting nearer and nearer, the huge puppy flying closer and closer. Its front paws connected with her legs at mid-thigh, causing her to stagger a bit. The dog, motionless now, just stared up at her looking for all the world like a confused eight-year-old. And the Buick was still getting closer.

"Mel!" Daniel said loudly.

She looked up and saw the car almost on top of her now. She bent down an scooped the puppy up. Well kind of. More like smlooshed it towards the curb as she turned to step onto the sidewalk. It didn't really work very well. Girl and dog tripped over each other and kinda flolloped onto the sidewalk and out of the Buick's path. It swept past and both Melissa and the puppy were unharmed.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Whoa, that was close." She shook her head as if trying to clear it. "Whoa. What about the dog?"

Nick stood up from where he'd been kneeling over the dog. "Yeah, he's fine. Newfoundland puppy."

"Aw, he's so cute!" I bent and picked him up. It wasn't really that easy because he was big. So it took a few attempts and lots of gathering before he was actually in my arms and up. "Look at him! He's so fluffy!" Every moved in and was petting him. He licked Melissa's hand. "He likes you best, Fish. I bet he was trying to save you!"

"No way," she said, petting him more.

"I bet he was! Oh, you have to keep him. What are you gong to name him?"

"Name him? I can't keep him! We're in a hotel!" she protested weakly.

"Is that it? We can sneak him in easy. Come on, you can't just leave him out here. He might get hit by some other evil Buick."

I could see that she was caving, but the puppy himself sealed it when he licked her chin. "Oh, fine. We'll keep him."

"Yay! So what are you gonna name him?" I jumped up and down.

"Uh…."

"Oh, name him Jebadiah!" I said eagerly. "We can call him Jeb for short!"

"Wha-"

"Great! It's settled then."

Melissa set him down and we started walking again. We just had about a mile to go and it was completely uneventful. We talked, laughed at the puppy, and had an all around good time. But then we were there. And Nick and Greg had to go.

"So, uh, maybe I'll see you around. Investigating and stuff." I said, scuffing my green clad foot of the ground.

"Maybe in the Stratosphere lobby… at, oh… five? On Monday?" Greg said back with a smile.

"Oh? You seem pretty sure about that."

"Yeah, I am." We smiled at each other.

Once inside the elevator, I started wiggin' out. Man, oh man! Greg, the Stratosphere, and me! Whoo! It took me a few minutes to realize that the puppy was with us. No one even stopped us to say 'hey, no fuzzy black puppies allowed.' Melissa and I hi-fived. Then we were at our floor and out of the elevator. As we approached our door we noticed a piece of paper taped to it. Daniel move to pluck it off.

"Don't touch it!" I said. "It might be evidence!"

Sarah turned to me. "Evidence of what?"

"I don't know."

Daniel read it from the door. "'Don't talk to coppers. Otherwise your little friends will get it.' Wow. That sounds threatening."

"Bugger. Go call Brass or somebody," I told them. "I've got a plan."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Oh, great."


End file.
